By Nontokozo Gwebu
At the center of FINNOVATION 2025, a strong message resonated from private sector leaders — Eswatini’s fintech future needs to be driven by local solutions that address real, daily gaps in retail and digital payments.
While the Summit celebrated progress in digital inclusion, local business leaders shared a more realistic view: cash stays dominant, e-commerce remains limited, and digital adoption is slow among consumers and small businesses.
During a key panel, Greaves Motsi, CEO of SVN Payments, was direct. “The biggest challenge in Eswatini right now is that despite having access to mobile money and banking platforms, there is minimal use of alternative payment methods. People still line up at ATMs.
There is no strong e-commerce presence, and businesses lack the data tools needed to understand their customers,” he said.
He noted that retailers are navigating blind.
“A customer might buy a cake every Friday, yet there’s no system to anticipate that behavior. The cake isn’t in stock, the sale is lost, and the business suffers.”
Motsi advocated for interactive self-service platforms, real-time reconciliation, and mobile payment integration, especially for social media commerce. “Since our youth live on Instagram. That’s where business should go too,” he said.
His point wasn’t about high-end systems, but affordable, integrated technologies that SMEs and local shops can implement. He stressed collaboration over competition, saying, “We need to stop thinking of ourselves as competing fintechs.
There’s enough business for everyone, so let’s collaborate to reduce costs and create smarter solutions.”
Thabo Magagula, Group CEO of Umelusi, offered a forward-looking perspective. “Being small as a country is an advantage; we can pilot innovative fintech solutions in a manageable environment and then scale them globally,” he said.
He challenged Eswatini’s entrepreneurs to adopt a global mindset, citing examples from China, where “cash is nearly obsolete,” and fintech drives all transactions.
Magagula highlighted agricultural commerce as a largely untapped area, praising the UNDP’s AgriFinTech App for opening channels to markets and enabling timely payments for farmers.
He also stressed the importance of peer-to-peer lending, blockchain integration, and youth economic engagement, underscoring: “There is money out there. The youth just need the platform to participate in the fintech economy.”
Their message was clear: Digital transformation in Eswatini must start with addressing local challenges — from ATM queues to inventory mismanagement, missed market opportunities, and engaging tech-savvy youth.